Why are we obsessed with American West fashion?

The catwalks have gone all prairie again, and it’s not only Westworld that’s to blame. Vogue charts the intriguing history of frontier fashion.

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Isabel Marant, Fashion Week Paris Fall 2018

Prairie dresses and pie-crust collars, the frontier woman as pin-up: the enduring myth of the American West has made a resurgence for spring/summer 2018 and looks set to stick around. Brands including Dior, Chloé, Raf Simons at Calvin Klein, Coach, Brock, Rebecca Taylor and, for fall, Isabel Marant, have all mined the era’s layers of inspiration, trotting out equestrian details and full-skirt silhouettes, high necks and long sleeves in referential fabrications of embroidered cotton, denim and ruffles.

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Westworld, Season 1

Why? The obvious culprit is Westworld, HBO’s sci-fi-theme-park thriller, which has had us hypnotised since 2016 with its synthetic, Technicolor rendering of one of history’s most fascinating and complex periods.

But our Western intrigue has been simmering for some time. In her 2016 book Denim: Fashion’s Frontier, Emma McClendon, associate curator of costume at The Museum at FIT, highlighted the influence of dude ranches – destinations popularised in the 1930s for vacationers wanting a taste of cowboy life.

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Calvin Klein Collection, New York Fashion Week Fall 2018

On TV, Netflix has no end of shows exploring the genre, from Ken Burns’ documentary The West and gritty drama Godless, starring Downton’s Michelle Dockery, to the Coen Brothers’ forthcoming six-part series The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. Fans of the underrated 2004 TV show Deadwood will be thrilled that a film is rumoured to be on its way. And for a literal taste of the era, you could swing by McDonald’s, which has just launched its Great Tastes of America menu (including the Tex Mex stack and the Ranch California).

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Isabel Marant, Paris Fashion Week Fall 2018

Then, there’s the fashion. We seem to be obsessed.

"The pioneer woman is a strong female idea," says designer Batsheva Hay. A former lawyer, she launched her eponymous label two years ago, inspired by Laura Ashley’s prairie-style dresses from the ’70s, which she revamped and remade for today’s wardrobe. "I think it’s definitely a time when women are looking at their roles and how empowered they are, and it makes us look back."

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Dior, Cruise 2019 in Paris

In her two years as artistic director at Christian Dior, Maria Grazia Chiuri has centred her collections on the idea of woman as explorer. The most recent, cruise 2019, was an ode to life in the saddle, inspired by the escaramuzas, Mexico’s women rodeo riders whose elaborate costumes are based on those worn by women of the 1910-20 revolution. Hats slung slow, full skirts cinched with fierce belts, their strength, defiance and sense of adventure was captured and celebrated on the catwalk.

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Alberta Ferretti, Milan Fashion Week Fall 2018

"The West has always represented the open frontier, the endless possibilities," points out McClendon. As a romantic symbol of freedom, it’s a theme that chimes with the current climate. As women’s rights step into the spotlight both politically and socially, there’s a shared uncertainty about where the world is at.

"When times are hard, we look for nostalgia – to things that make us feel better," says New Zealand-born, New York-based designer Rebecca Taylor, whose whimsical Victoriana designs are inspired by costume dramas.

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Little House on The Prairie, 1970

Fashion historian Dr Rebecca Arnold agrees. "With nostalgia comes a desire for escape, a sense of reconnecting with nature through the landscape," she says. But the romance of the American West is problematic because it is a "mythologised past", one that was substantially created by Hollywood during the golden age of cinema in the 1930s. Arnold describes it as a "fantasy of a lost eden": "It is a privileged nostalgia because it’s for a white idea of pioneers. It excludes a lot of the murkier side of the history." It’s these complexities and contradictions, however, that make it a compelling subject for designers and filmmakers.

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Calvin Klein Collection, New York Fashion Week 2017

Step forward Raf Simons, whose collections have explored the American dream since he joined Calvin Klein in 2016. "He’s taking these very recognisable moments of Americana and clearly working with them and questioning them," says McClendon. "It feels very different to that festival, hippy, ’70s bricolage that we’ve been seeing in other places." Notably, it’s less nostalgic. "I think, at the moment, being fascinated with the American past when we’re really questioning America in the present and the future is interesting to consider."

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Coach, New York Fashion Week 2017

It’s perhaps no surprise so many designers are turning to the ’70s for inspiration – the last time "westernwear" was a major trend. Like now, it was a period of social unrest, political upheaval and conflicting ideas about a new liberated world – and these were largely the same issues that underpinned the era of the American West, so it makes sense that the same fashion motifs would appear.

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Chloe, Paris Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2018

Westworld might have just wrapped its second season with a big send-off at London’s BFI, but with wide-brimmed fedoras at Armani’s latest menswear collection for autumn/winter 2019, the catwalks suggest we’re not yet done with the story of American West.